Clarets midfielder Jack Cork is in the top 50 footballers, in Europe’s top five leagues, whose value has increased the most during the last six months.

Clarets midfielder Jack Cork is in the top 50 footballers, in Europe’s top five leagues, whose value has increased the most during the last six months.

Cork arrived in the summer from Swansea City for around £10m (€8.7m), and his transfer value estimate – based on the exclusive algorithm developed by the CIES Football Observatory research team – shows he is now worth €27m, a remarkable rise of 25%.

That makes Cork’s value the 48th-highest rise in the figures, and suggests he is currently Burnley’s biggest potential asset.

Cork has played every minute of Burnley’s 30 Premier League games so far this season, scoring once – against his former club Swansea at Turf Moor in a 2-0 win in November – the same month he earned his first senior England cap as a late substitute in the Wembley friendly against World Cup holders Germany, which ended goal-less.

Incidentally, as a comparison, among Cork’s midfield colleagues, Belgium international Steven Defour, out for the season after knee surgery, is up 23% to €9.1m, the Republic of Ireland’s Jeff Hendrick is -11.9% at €13.3m and Ashley Westwood is -12.2% at €4.3m.

Fellow midfielder Dean Marney is -24.5% at €0.4m and Canada international Scott Arfield -22.9% at €2.9m.

Another of Burnley’s key performers this season, Iceland’s Johann Berg Gudmundsson’s value is up +67.6% to €11.4m, and Ireland wideman Robbie Brady, currently out for the season with a knee injury, is -19.6% to €12.3m.

January signing AAron Lennon is up an astonishing 205.3% to €4m, while Georges-Kevin Nkoudou, currently on loan from Tottenham Hotspur until the end of the season is valued at €7.7m, down 41.3%.

Up front, record signing Chris Wood is -18.1% to €24.9m, in-form Ashley Barnes up 17.2% to €6.8m, Wales striker Sam Vokes down -26.7% to €8.3m, Nahki Wells -1.6% to €4.2m and Ireland’s Jon Walters, who has only made one start all season aafter injury, -11.9% to €2m.

At the back, stand-in skipper Ben Mee is up 21.4% to €8.5m, James Tarkowski up 112.5% to €15.3m, and Kevin Long, another Republic of Ireland cap – up 71.0% to €3.3m.

Among the full backs, Matt Lowton is down 26.1% to €6.8m, Phil Bardsley up 14.3% to €1.6m, Ireland’s Stephen Ward -20.7% to €4.6m, and Charlie Taylor up 55.3% to €5.9m.

Club captain Tom Heaton, out since September after dislocating his shoulder, is -20.1% to €5.2m, Nick Pope up 94.6% to €10.9m, Anders Lindegaard -16.7% to €0.2m and Adam Legzdins -6.5% to €1m.

The strongest increases for players from the four other major European championships were recorded for 19-year-old France striker Kylian Mbappé (+€54.7m), on loan at Paris St Germain from Monaco in the French Ligue 1, Brazilian midfielder Paulinho Bezerra (+€42.4m) of Barcelona in the Spanish Liga, Serbian Sergej Milinković-Savić (+€40.7m) of Lazio in the Italian Serie A and Frenchman Dayot Upamecano (+€35.6m) of RB Leipzig in the German Bundesliga.